Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Best Free Open Source Software For Windows

Posted by timothy on from the where's-vlc? dept.

snydeq writes "InfoWorld surveys the FOSS-on-Windows landscape, detailing the 10 free open source solutions most likely to unseat proprietary offerings. 'Some, like TrueCrypt and VirtualBox, are real diamonds in the rough: enterprise-grade solutions that deliver many of the same bells and whistles of their commercial brethren, but for free. Others, like Firefox and OpenOffice.org, are already legendary, and their strong followings ensure their continued development and support at levels that rival the best proprietary solutions.'" Rather than click through 10 different pages, the slideshow presentation at least lets you hover over each page's link to preview the author's top picks.

8 of 324 comments (clear)

  1. Lisp in a Box by rolfwind · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Not going to be the next firefox in terms of popularity... but lisp in a box is just nice for getting into lisp/emacs on any platform. Used to be a big learning curve how to set slime, etc. up and all that.

    http://common-lisp.net/project/lispbox/

  2. paint.net? by fermion · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Never heard of the application. Summary say it is extremely limited. Is there a reason, other than complexity of interface, that one might choose it over gimp. I suppose gimp does not have all the shapes of a drawing program, but it does paint, with colors.

    --
    "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
    1. Re:paint.net? by Nimloth · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Paint .NET is a real good middle ground between MS Paint and Photoshop. The interface is lightning fast and neat, real easy to use, and pretty powerful. For a home user who occasionally has to edit graphics and/or photos, it's a neat program and it's free. Sure beats MS Paint at anything. If you're used to the GIMP, stick with it.

  3. Re:Truecrypt by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    What's the point of an encrypted disk on a server? Isn't the whole point of a server to "serve" that data constantly (ie the data is availble at all times)? I mean, unless you unmount/remount the volumes each time you use them, encryption isn't really doing anything but taking up extra CPU cycles.

  4. Re:OpenOffice legendary? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    So people who keep saying that OpenOffice is better than Microsoft Office are probably only working on documents. In my experience OpenOffice Base is a bug ridden POS and MSO is quite a bit better - not perfect either, but much better - especially with databases and spreadsheets.

  5. This will be unpopular but... by bschorr · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...Microsoft Office 2007 (and 2010) create PDF files just fine too.

    So does Corel's WordPerfect product.

    (and yes, I do have OpenOffice installed on this machine...I'm just sayin')

    --
    -B-
  6. Re:What about VLC? by tepples · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Surely VLC should have made this list?

    The list was posted on a U.S. web site. VLC contains patented algorithms but doesn't come with a license to use the algorithms in the United States.

  7. AutoHotKey and AutoIt are a necessity. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 2, Interesting

    AutoHotkey is a necessity. Open Source, free, but unfortunately no Linux version. Automates keystrokes. Very professionally maintained. The programming language is quirky.

    AutoIt makes programs that do automatic installations for examples.

    Both can imitate keystrokes and mouse movements.